Gertrude Stein

http://www.sappho.com/poetry/g_stein.html

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) was born in Pennsylvania to Jewish-Bavarian parents. She was educated briefly in Europe and then at Radcliffe. She studied psychology under William James, and his influence runs through her work. Her life in Paris motivated much of her experimental writing. Cezanne's and Matisse's painting inspired the composition of her early Three Lives (1909) while Picasso's cubism informs her astonishing prose-poem Tender Buttons (1914). Her novel Q.E.D. (1903) published posthumously as Things as They Are) explores the jealousies and desires between three young women. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1932) records her relationship with Alice.

(from Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded)

I love my love with a v

Because it is like that

I love my love with a b

Because I am beside that

A king.

I love my love with an a

Because she is a queen

I love my love and a a is the best of them

Think well and be a king,

Think more and think again

I love my love with a dress and a hat

I love my love and not with this or with that

I love my love with a y because she is my bride

I love her with a d because she is my love beside

Thank you for being there

Nobody has to care

Thank you for being here

Because you are not there.

And with and without me which is and without she she can be late and then and how and all around we think and found

that it is time to cry she and I.

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Last revised: January 6, 1996

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